This invention relates to the art of welding and, more particularly, to covers for protecting electric welding electrode wire wound on a reel.
As is well known in the art of continuous electric arc welding, a continuous length of welding electrode wire, which is not electrically hot, is wound onto a reel and is fed therefrom to the point of welding by an appropriate feeding mechanism which progressively unwinds the wire from the reel. After the wire is initially wound on the reel, and prior to its use in the foregoing manner, the reel of wire can be stored for a considerable period of time during which, unless appropriately protected, the wire is exposed to ambient air and moisture and thus subject to oxidation, discoloration, physical damage, or the like, all of which can render the wire commercially unacceptable even though it may be perfectly acceptable for the intended welding function. Even though such defects may only appear on the outermost convolutions of the wire in that those convolutions therebeneath are somewhat protected thereby, users of the wire are sometimes not willing to risk product quality or to discard an initial portion of the wire to avoid such risk, whereby the entire reel of wire is rendered unacceptable.
In addition to the foregoing problems, it is desirable in connection with shipping and storage of welding wire reels to vertically stack a number of the reels flange-to-flange and, in connection therewith, it is difficult to maintain adjacent reels in vertical alignment in that the flanges thereof are smooth and thus promote lateral sliding therebetween. Therefore, unless the reels are in some manner supported against relative lateral displacement when stacked, and upper one or more of the reels can slide off of the reel or reels therebeneath and, in falling therefrom, can impact against an underlying support surface, or a person, damaging the reel and the wire thereon and/or injuring the person due to the size and weight of the reel with a full supply of welding wire thereon.